Ed Koch Laid to Rest

February 6, 2013

NEW YORK — Thousands gath­ered at Temple Emanu-El in Manhattan on Monday to pay tribute to the life of the man who Mayor Michael Bloomberg said considered “heaven” the only viable alternative to living in New York.

Ed Koch, the charismatic and outspoken Jewish political personality who served as mayor of New York City from 1978-1989, died of heart failure at 88 on Feb. 1 and was buried three days later at Trinity Cemetery in upper Manhattan.

“Just think about it,” Bloom­berg said, “a Polish Jew in an Episcopal graveyard in a largely Dominican neighborhood. What could be more New York — or even more Ed Koch?”

On the stage of Temple Eman­u-El for Koch’s memorial service, an honor guard manned by representatives of all of the city’s uniformed services surrounded the simple pine coffin. Rabbi David Posner began his words with a parable of Job: “All I did was just and honest, for righteousness was my clothing.” Koch’s nephews, Shmuel, Jona­than and Jared, speaking as a triumvirate, recalled their loving uncle, the teacher of intellectual and political challenge, praising his familial warmth.

“In the family,” they said, “the question was always, ‘How are you doing?’ ”

New York’s second Jewish mayor died the same day as the public release of Koch, a documentary that tells his life’s story. Koch’s presence was also virtually tangible that day during the celebration of the 100th anniversary of New York’s Grand Central Terminal. Bloom­berg, leading the celebration, called his predecessor “a legacy of the five boroughs.” He said no retired official “had remained so actively involved” in the city as Koch.

The importance of Jewish identity to Koch was evidenced by the inscription on the memorial stone at his burial plot, which he bought in 2008: “My father is Jewish. My mother is Jew­ish. I am Jewish.” Those were the last words of Jewish Wall Street Journal bureau chief Daniel Pearl before he was killed by Al Qaeda in Pakistan on Feb. 1, 2002 — 11 years, to the day, before Koch’s death.

U.S. Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) said at the Grand Central Terminal celebration that Koch “was a great mayor, a great adviser, and a great friend.” Calling him “an energetic cannonball of a man with an abiding love for our remarkable city,” she said his “steady leadership during the financial crisis of the 1970s helped turn the city around.”

“His broad knowledge of public policies affecting urban areas, his intelligence and grasp of detail, his decisiveness, were everything we want to see in a great political leader,” she said.

U.S. Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) said the late mayor was “a quintessential New Yorker. “For decades, he embodied the soul of our city, unfailingly defending and advocating for New York and everyone in it,” Nadler said. “I was proud to have worked with him for years during his mayoralty and after on so many issues affecting the city and Israel, of which he was an unflinching supporter.” Nadler said Koch had a “rich and colorful life,” and was “honest, tough, hardworking and immune to pretense.”

Koch served in the House of Representatives from 1969-1977, and after his political career was a television judge on The People’s Court from 1997-1999. From his congressional days until his final ones, he made his feelings about Israel clear. His backing of the Jewish state and Jewish causes was public and proactive. While representing Manhattan in Congress, he met with Golda Meir (and as mayor, named a midtown Manhattan plaza “Golda Meir Square”), and influenced the removal of immigration quotas for Soviet and later Syrian Jews.

But not all his associations with the Jewish community were positive. He uncovered a major scandal in the nursing home industry that sent Rabbi Bernard Bergman to prison, and the American Jewish Committee in 1978 said his actions led to “a rise in anti-Semitism” among blacks in New York. As mayor, he angered the Chabad-Lubavitch movement by removing special police protection at its Crown Heights headquarters in 1978, and cooled threats of violence between the Satmar and Belzer Chasidic factions with an additional police presence.

The wide range of Koch’s influence was evident in the words of those who spoke at his funeral Monday. The massive Temple Emanu-El was filled to capacity.

“Ed … has got to be loving all this attention,” Bloomberg said. “And I was particularly thrilled that he picked my neighborhood corner shul for his funeral.

“No mayor, I think, has ever embodied the spirit of New York City like he did. Tough and loud, brash and irreverent, full of humor and chutzpah — he was our city’s quintessential mayor,” he added.

The Consul General of Israel in New York, Ido Aharoni, brought “heartfelt condolences” on behalf of “the entire people of Israel, on behalf of a nation that felt Edward Koch was one of us.” He conveyed gratitude for Koch’s “longstanding support and unconditional love,” calling Koch a “clear voice for Israel [who] let us down never.” Aharoni recalled Koch as someone “always curious and eager to know more … one of a kind.” Commenting on Koch’s inclusion of the Shema prayer on his tombstone, the Consul General assured “Israel hears you loud and clear.”